A blog about discussions on various notable hoaxes that had sprang up over the centuries and why in the age of the Internet / Web 2.0 it still takes time and effort to confirm a hoax as such if it occurs.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Given his open mistrust of the “dishonest mainstream media”,
is Trump’s Swedish Massacre Hoax a sure sign that he’s already out of touch
with reality?

By: Ringo Bones

With the whole world still reeling after Kellyanne Conway’s
Bowling Green Massacre Hoax, people who are already questioning the sanity of
President Trump may had earned credence of their claims with the recent “Swedish
Massacre” tirade on Twitter as Trump tries to justify his anti-immigrant
stance. The Swedish Massacre Hoax was apparently invented by Trump during a
campaign-style rally of his supporters in an aircraft hangar in Melbourne,
Florida. When former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt Tweeted: “Sweden? Terror
attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.” It wasn’t long that everyone
realized that Trump’s “Swedish Massacre Hoax” is about as real as his
presidency.

President Trump’s bizarre nonexistent terror attack on
Swedish soil may have been due to his rejection of other more reliable news
media in preference to a conservative far-right news channel called Fox News,
where the night before Trump’s Melbourne, Florida rally, he was watching a
documentary made by a right-wing demagogue claiming that Swedish crime rates
are on the rise because of the Swedish government relaxing its restrictions in
accepting Syrian war refugees in 2015. But the truth is crime rates across
Sweden had been in decline since 2005. Trump’s war on the “dishonest media” has
unforeseen consequences indeed. By often referring to CNN and the BBC, amongst
others, as “fake news”, it seems Trump has apparently lost all contact with
reality this time.